White House photo by Eric Draper

President George W. Bush smiles after delivering his remarks on U.S. Ocean Action Plan last September at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. President Bush has now protected more of the ocean than any other president.

Green Right Now reports

President George W. Bush today announced the establishment of three underwater monuments that will protect a vast area of the central Pacific Ocean that spans nine tropical coral islands and their surrounding waters.

The action was cheered by conservationists and environmental groups, including the Marine Conservation Biology Institute and Environmental Defense Fund, which each worked with the administration to establish the protections.

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By Harriet Blake

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) issued a report earlier this week stating that global warming is increasing at an even faster pace than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecast in 2007. The report, “Climate Change: Faster, Stronger, Sooner,” was pegged to the Oct. 20 Luxembourg meeting of the European Union’s Environment Ministers.

Despite concerns about the global financial crisis, the ministers have chosen to stick with their environmental improvement plan – to reduce greenhouse gases 20 percent by 2020. The WWF would like to see that increased to 30 percent.

According to the WWF’s scientific data, there were six key findings:

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By Barbara Kessler

Remember the global food crisis of earlier this year? Unfortunately, the intervening mortgage, energy and banking crises have not solved it.

The next food shortages appear to be headed our way from the oceans, where overfishing has led to the steep decline of shark populations worldwide, the closing of West Coast salmon fisheries and now, the potential slide of the Alaskan Pollock.

This latest fish-in-trouble was once so prolific that it became the world’s most omnipresent, affordable everyman’s seafood, sliced into faux crab, minced and pressed into fish sticks and filleted into fast food McFishwiches.

Now, the workhorse Pollock, once vastly abundant, is experiencing a sudden unanticipated population decline of about 50 percent, jeopardizing the world’s supply of fish sticks (which may or may not alarm you), the survival of the Stellar Sea Lions of and countless Alaskan fishing jobs, according to a survey by the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The findings have conservationists calling for a reassessment fishing limits in the seas along the Bering Strait. They want the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to set new reasonable catch limits on the Pollock that consider sustainability when the council meets in December.

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By Barbara Kessler

In yet another indictment of industrial farming methods and another threat to fish, researchers are reporting vast growth of ocean “dead zones.” Once rare, dead zones are multiplying and now total more than 400 around the world’s coastal waters, putting stresses on marine life by upsetting the underwater food chain, according to an August article in the journal Science.

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By Barbara Kessler

Before dunking yourself in the ocean for a last summer hurrah, you may want to check out the NRDC’s latest report on the state of the nation’s beaches. It found that the number of closings and advisory days along U.S. freshwater and ocean coasts was at the second highest level in 18 years of tracking, mainly due to increased pollution along the Mid-Atlantic region and Great Lakes waters.

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By John DeFore

While polar bear populations face the challenge of habitat melting beneath their feet, organisms that call water home appear to be grappling with a stranger difficulty: More and more areas of the ocean have oxygen levels too low to sustain them.A report just published in the journal Science asserts that, as tropical oceans warm, regions of low oxygen content are expanding.

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By John DeFore

While enterprising Americans are busy submerging decaying urban artifacts to create new fish habitats, one entrepreneur is traveling the world using man-made objects to help habitats grow back in something closer to nature’s own design.

Biologist and avid diver Michael Moore (no, not the filmmaker), concerned about the disappearance of coral reefs, has designed a kit of easily assembled parts that mimics the real thing in such a way as to encourage regrowth. Emphasizing the preservation of tourist economies — a thriving reef means exotic fish, which means scuba tourists with money to spend — as much as a selfless environmental agenda, he has put installations in small coastal villages in places like Indonesia and the Philippines.

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